HMS Diamond, a Royal Navy Type 45 destroyer, has returned to Portsmouth adorned with kill markings after an historic deployment in the Middle East.
The warship completed a six-month mission safeguarding crucial international shipping lanes in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden, during which it shot down nine drones and a Houthi missile.
The deployment saw HMS Diamond travel nearly 44,000 miles and spend 151 days at sea. One of the ship’s most notable achievements occurred on January 9, when it neutralised seven drones in a single night, the most aerial threats a Royal Navy warship has taken down in modern times in one day, according to a Royal Navy news release.
Welcome home to your loved ones @hmsdiamond! Your performance & professionalism over the past 7 months successfully protecting shipping from Houthi attacks in the Red Sea was exemplary. Congratulations from @HMNBPortsmouth, #Portsmouth & the nation; an excellent deployment 🫡⚓️🇬🇧 pic.twitter.com/ZG0VqBZm0f
— Naval Base Commander of HMNB Portsmouth (@CdreJohnVoyce) July 6, 2024
The destroyer also marked another first in April by shooting down a Houthi anti-ship ballistic missile, a feat never before accomplished by a British vessel.
Lieutenant Freddy Hamblin, Officer of the Watch 4 on HMS Diamond, described the intense engagement on January 9 in a news release: “I’d just come on watch after sunset when we anticipated the large-scale drone attack. As they closed on us, the apprehension and excitement built. It was great to see the crew’s training kicking in. When you engage with Sea Viper, the whole bridge shakes, and there’s a bright flash and a loud whoosh, followed by silence and darkness.”
Leading Writer Ben Maple shared his experience, stating in the same release: “We train for scenarios like these, and to be part of it for real was adrenaline-inducing. To know we saved lives will stay with me forever. After only seeing my wife and three children for four weeks since September 2023, I am looking forward to seeing my children smile and to see how much they have grown.”
Commanding Officer, Commander Peter Evans, praised the crew’s performance in the release: “The sailors onboard HMS Diamond have been fantastic. They have demonstrated courage, professionalism, and the very best of teamwork. Every success that Diamond has achieved for the Royal Navy and UK Defence is due to her ship’s company. We’re now really excited to be home with our friends and families, whose support has been absolutely critical to us on board.”
The deployment also included counter-narcotic operations, with HMS Diamond seizing 2.4 tonnes of drugs in the Indian Ocean. The ship’s return to Portsmouth was an emotional reunion for the crew and their loved ones, marking the end of a challenging and highly successful mission.
Petty Officer Engineering Technician (Weapon Engineering) Daniel Kirsopp reflected on the deployment: “The humour of the team sticks with me. We were joking as we worked, but the reality of what was happening was crazy. It didn’t fully strike you as real until after firing the missiles. There was a real sense of achievement that we had actually done something tangible to help.”
Good job. But the lack of a proper gun meant wasting Aster in several WW1 era performance targets.
With CAMM upgrade the 4.5″ should be replaced by a 57mm gun.
They’re not going to replace the 4.5 anytime soon, not at least till the T23 goes out of service. Also how many of those engagements do we know were at an appropriate range for a gun?
What do T23 have to do with T45 in this subject. Both have the 4.5″.
Lots of Houthi drones downed by 76mm. Italian, French German , Danish Navies all downed drones with it.
From the kill marks almost everyone maybe except the missile.
Yes that’s the point. It’s still the most common gun in the fleet and until it isn’t and training and maintenance is focused on the 5 inch and 57 they’re not going to have much reason to change it.
Diamond had been very successful in the red sea, if they are going to take any lessons from the experience and in turn upgrade ships it will probably be in future designs or to more modern ships. The T45s are already receiving an extensive upgrade package, we know the Camm cells were a cost saving measure so an upgrade to anything else seems unlikely, add on top of that the plans for lasers at some point.
Yes they should have fitted MK41 16 VLS with quad packed Sea Ceptor. Instead we got 24 Sea Ceptor instead of 64. If they wished to max out the T45 they should have gone the MK41 rout.
Replacing the 4.5 gun for a 57mm would also have been wise. Also ditching the Phalanx for 40mm mounts would be a good swap. Replace the existing 30mm with DEWs.
DEW isn’t really a replacement for conventional weapons due to the various conditions it can’t operate in. Will probably see it working alongside traditional guns
No one has ever quad packed sea ceptor in a mk41.
It’s a total waste of money putting sea ceptor in a mk41 when the entire point of sea ceptor is it can do a cold gas launch.
The only time we’d do that now is if the T31 was armed with the full 32 mk41 cells and the quad pack provides all of the air defence. I don’t think that is likely, would prefer 16 or 24 plus a reasonable number of CAMM in standard ExLS. The packing method I am most attracted to is the suggested twin-pack for the future CAMM-MR. That would be a way of having “proper” area air defence on any of our future escorts. The quad-pack of CAMM-ER also makes sense, unless someone up the line has done the sensible thing and made sure that the existing single slots can carry them.
How a missile that can be twin packed cannot be quad packed?
Look up “Circle packing in a square”
If a missile had folding fins, then a canister could be developed to fit two larger cylinders inside the square mk41 than could be quad-packed
They have to be in opposite corners.
That assumes the canister launcher is also a circle.
I was imagining that a canister were developed that held two missiles, rather than a holder for two canisters
Okay then that makes sense . But i am still opinion that is better to just have launchers for CAMM and do not waste MK41 for the propose.
I think the MR version is different.
There’s no way it fits in the standard VLS, it’s so much bigger than the others.
It is also such a massive capability boost, like some of the earlier versions of SM-2 but carrying twice as many, that I think it is worth using to turn, say, a T31 into a temporary air defence frigate by using it to fill out one or two of the mk41 blocks.
It’s certainly not something our ships (except perhaps T83 when it comes along) will carry as a matter of course because it is only really useful for area defence with long range but no special capability.
CAMM and CAMM-ER use the same environmentally sealed launcher/container. CAMM-ER is slightly wider in diameter to CAMM as the rocket motor is longer and slightly wider. CAMM-MR fits the front end of CAMM containing the radar, guidance system and warhead on to a much fatter and longer rocket motor than that used for the ER version.
At Eurosatory, MBDA had models of all three of the CAMM variants. You will clearly see how much larger CAMM-MR is compared to the other two variants.
I don’t think there is any fixed data on the CAMM-MR dimensions yet.
So far MBDA have only released images and shown models of the MR version. The images and models look the same. Where they have fitted the front end of CAMM to a significantly larger rocket motor, when compared to CAMM-ER.
One of the key Polish MoD requirements is to have an effective engagement range of 100km. Even with the longer and slighter wider rocket motor, the CAMM-ER is unlikely to reach this range. Though it might by a quasi ballistic path.
However, the requirement does not state whether the 100km range is by a direct path or a ballistic parabolic path! The ballistic path does give a more efficient flight profile and therefore more range. Though sometimes the direct path can be more important, as the time to target could be more critical.
Either way, for the missile to reach this range directly. It must have a substantially bigger rocket motor than that used with the CANM-ER. Raytheon have done a similar upgrade to the SM6 to give it more reach, especially for very high altitude interceptions. Where they are now using the front section with the radar, guidance system and warhead from the standard SM6. Then fitted it to a much wider diameter rocket motor.
Both the CAMM-MR and SM6 Block 1B missiles look aerodynamically wrong. The angled joint between the standard and new larger rocket section. Would likely cause flow separation and vortices. But as both missiles are going into production, this clearly is not a problem.
Trials of the MR version are due later this year. For me the interesting part of the joint collaboration, is that the deal stated that the missile will be used by both Poland and the UK. Thereby inferring that perhaps T26/31 and the Army may be getting it.
Also not all those drones would’ve been attacking diamond, they had alot of sea to cover and will have been engaging drones that were well out of gun range
It is possible, but RN objective should be minimize the use of difficult to produce missiles/expensive missiles.
True, but then again you probably want to down an airborne threat as far away from the ship as possible. If you relied on a phalanx system only, then you always run the risk of a malfunction/jam when you need it the most.
You don’t down 300kph targets with Asters the most distance possible from the ship. That is not a viable strategy. It is perfectly possible to down a WW1 era target 3-8km from the ship.
That is why i don’t consider Phalanx viable today. Minimum a 40 mm Bofors.
The 45 is there to protect other ships not itself.
Exactly, I’m sure the cost effective of the missile drone exchange rate was not high on the crews mind when dealing with a precious billion pound destroyer whos very expensive radar won’t react well to shrapnel not to mention the lives of the crew.
The sailor have to do what sailors do to save the ship with the available weapons. So they correctly used Asters because that is what they have.
They aren’t the managers of Royal Navy and the industry capabilities, their job is to defend the ship.
RN would get out of Asters before getting out of money.
So the 4.5 is not a proper gun but the 57 mm is?
How’s the 57mm at land attack or anti ship work. 😀
4.5 is not a proper gun because it can’t do AA , was not designed for it but to make things worse the capability was taken out by RN.
What does a 57mm gun bring that the 4.5″ doesn’t? Wouldn’t a smaller barrel mean less effective for shore bombardment which is it’s primary job?
57mm can do AA, 4.5″ can’t.
A 57mm should be able to destroy drones at 5-6km,
the 76mm destroyed these drones at 6km with a couple of rounds.
Whats the reason that the 4.5″ can’t do AA? Is it the lack of air burst ammo or is it a targeting /elevation issue?
I guess the question is whether it physically can’t do it or they just haven’t invested in the capability.
RN took out the capability of the 4.5″ gun.
Note that it was never a gun designed for the propose. it was a secondary capability. But should have been okayish for this kind of slow targets if the capability was retained.
I assume therefore it would be cheaper to bring back the capability than replace the gun completely.
The problem it is legacy, AA and other ammunition maybe not being build anymore, with end of T23 only T45 will have them.
The RN removed the capability. I’m sure GB will correct me if I’m wrong? But as I understand it the software was not updated on the ships CMS, that is used to then program the time delay for the fuzing. The 4.5” shells with the programmable fuzing have stayed the same. So in theory it should be a simple fix to update the ship’s CMS.
A gun can’t hit a target at anything like the range a missile can. To hit a target with a gun you need to be much closer to what you are protecting and that isn’t always possible.
True but if you are basically fending off Drones you can decide to trade off range for cost, let your Gun Armament deal with them.
Doesn’t matter what or how well done boys work that benefits more than just us
What’s the one on the bottom left? Vulcan, Typhoon or Rafale?
Shahad??
Yeh its a HESA Shahed loitering drone.
Cheers CR
Well done but using expensive missiles to down cheap drones is not really sustainable. The sooner RN ships are armed with ‘DragonFire’ the better
I’m not sure cost is the issue, more that the ship only carries so many missiles and in a war situation could be easily saturated.
Cost is an issue but worse than that it is industrial capacity. Aster takes time to build, uses very high performance components, it is also a high tech job -and security restricted- so there are a lot of limitations besides the money for a large production.
Well done to the whole crew!!!! Upholding the best traditions of the Senior Service. Hope you enjoyed all those hours in Defence Watches with the constant opening and closing of the watertight doors!!! Happy memories. Enjoy your time home with your families and get ready for the next time you are called upon. Don’t forget the kit has to be capable but it’s Jolly Jack who makes the difference in the end. BZ
Whatever the arguments about weapon systems, that is a pretty impressive collection of kill markings HMS Diamond now has!
The ships company have clearly excelled themselves. I assume they will be receiving an operational medal for this deployment.